Allstate to Use Telemarketers
To Sell Insurance to Germans

Allstate Corp. has come to Germany, Europe's biggest insurance market, with plans to use a sales technique it couldn't get away with in the U.S.

America's No. 2 car insurer intends to invest $100 million in Germany -- and become one of the country's 10 largest insurers by the year 2000 -- by selling auto insurance by telephone rather than through agents. Selling by telephone is cheaper, but Allstate has a big agency force in the U.S. that would never stand for being put into competition with telemarketers.